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(photo courtesy Siemens Foundation/2011Current Harvard student Angela Zhang, won the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology grand prize while a senior at Monta Vista High School back in 2011. Zhang’s prize winning research studied the use of nanotechnology to eradicate cancer stem cells.

It’s hard to imagine, but Angela Zhang, the former Monta Vista student who pocketed $100,000 for her cancer-fighting research back in December 2011,

felt out of her element when she started attending Harvard.

“I am going to a place with so many bright and accomplished students,” the 19-year-old recalls. “I was so intimidated and scared.”

Two years ago the then-Monta Vista senior was the toast of the young science world after winning the grand prize of a $100,000 scholarship in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Zhang’s prize-winning research studied the use of nanotechnology to eradicate cancer stem cells. She did most of her research and work while still a student at Monta Vista High.

After her big win, she did countless media interviews, got to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and even met President Barack Obama.

“The six months after I won were probably more exciting than the next 20 or 30 years of my life,” she said. “It was like something out of a movie. It was a Cinderella story for a nerd like me.”

Things have calmed down a little bit now at Harvard University, if declaring biomedical engineering as your major can be considered “calming down.”

Zhang is still doing research. A connection through the Siemens competition helped her start working with a lab at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Technology Assessment. The lab evaluates the best methods by which to implement imaging devices on patients. She is specifically working on studying how effective MRIs are at characterizing cancers and how that should influence treatment strategy.

Outside of school and research, she founded Labs on Wheels in August 2012, a nonprofit that works to break down barriers to resources that could help K-12 students get a hands-on and in-depth science, technology, engineering and math education.

Labs on Wheels collects used lab equipment from local universities and biotech companies and donates it to high schools and middle schools.

The genesis of Labs on Wheels came from Zhang’s work with her research club back at Monta Vista. Zhang knows that her access to lab equipment and mentors at Stanford University played massive roles in getting her research ideas off the ground.

Students “couldn’t put their questions into reality. I say time and time again that not everybody has the resources,” she said. “I really do think that every student should have time to test their science questions. I was very lucky; I understand students work just as hard and may not have that opportunity.”

So far, the nonprofit has been awarded a $1,000 grant from the Harvard I3 Innovation Challenge and a $10,000 grant from the Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business Innovation Competition, according to Zhang, who also presented Labs on Wheels at the 2013 TEDxSan Jose conference.

While she originally envisioned herself attending Stanford and staying home in Silicon Valley, Harvard has been very good to Zhang despite all of the academic challenges.

“Learning is taken to another level. It’s like drinking a fine wine with multiple flavors and depths of complexity,” she said.

Part of the joy of learning at Harvard is coming from her supportive classmates who are in the same rigorous grind.

“It is a stressful place, but it’s not stressful from competing against one another,” she said. “We are a common force going up against the school, trying to conquer all the things they throw at us.”

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